I knew I’d regret it. My defence is that I was egged on by Manny. He is so convincing, you see.
"We're a better team, Dan. Australia are shot. Hopeless. Mentally weak. Selectors don't know what they're doing. We will win at least 3-0."
Hendo chimed in with a moan about how winning so easily just wasn't fun anymore.
I could sense the hubris, but, like a 17 year old getaway driver eager to help out his older brother's criminal friends, I got dragged into their web of irresponsibility.
Do not mess with the cricket Gods. They all support Australia
For once, the day began gently. England’s openers milked the “good German” Hilfenhaus and the bustling but wayward Harris for 5 an over, and a morale sapping miss at slip by Watson seemed only to compound Aussie despair.
Indeed the absence of Johnson from the opening overs of the day confirmed that Ponting had no faith in his one-time spearhead.
But what followed was a spell of such spectacular accuracy, venom and startling brilliance that the whole edifice on which England’s Ashes campaign has been built lay in ruins before you had time to say “When’s lunch for heaven’s sake?”
First to go was Cook playing away from his body and taken at slip.
Thereafter it was a succession of fast, late inswinging full balls that did for England’s trio of right handers. You could argue that Trott and Pieterson should have played with straighter bats, but both men tend to look to the onside for their runs. Credit must go to Johnson for conjuring such late movement that bread and butter shots suddenly looked so ill conceived.
As for Collingwood he was so late on another sharply inswinging delivery that apparently the curator found him still out there playing it at stumps. The UDRS was invoked and, I’m sad to say, the correct decisions were given.
To compound matters, Harris found a beauty, pretty much his only beauty of the day, to get Strauss caught behind.
England had collapsed from 78-0 to 98-5. Effectively they were about 2 hours of solid batting away from winning the Ashes before Mitch’s intervention. By lunch they were on the brink of losing the test.
A rally of sorts from a scratchy Prior and a sublime Bell, who continues to look the best batsman on either side, hauled England up from the canvas before a barrage of short bowling culminated in the messy dismissal of Prior. He contrived somehow to deflect the ball from his abdomen to the back of his bat and then on to his leg stump.
Swann hung around with Bell, who is increasingly resembling the plaything of a rich millionaire, unfurling cover drives as if to order, before getting out wafting while no-one’s looking.
The tail, however, didn’t so much wag as be pulled erect and sliced from its moorings by the clinical butcher’s knife that was Johnson, just in time for tea.
That meant Australia starting their second innings with a lead of 81 and an extended session in which to pile on the misery.
It didn’t quite work out like that. Hughes managed to survive just long enough to confirm the suspicion that he can’t play the short ball, the leg side ball, the full ball, or the back of a length regulation ball outside off stump that eventually did for him.
And on a day when all England woke up and smelled that the coffee had been adulterated with out of date chicory, there was at least the compensation of witnessing Ponting’s demise, strangled down the leg side.
Australia’s fortunes may be turning but Ponting’s are not. He was given not out but overturned on appeal despite the lack of hot spot evidence. However, the ball clearly brushed his glove so some sort of justice was done.
Clarke looked like a man in terrible form. He raced to 20 off 17 balls with some decent strokes, but all the time the over eager air of a man with something to prove.
When Tremlett got one to come back ever so slightly, a ludicrous cut shot served only to deflect the ball on to his middle stump.
Thereafter it was Watson and Hussey all the way to the close. 119-3, a lead of 81 and all hope lost.
The Ashes were in our grasp before Johnson unscrewed the urn, tipped the contents into a Kazoo, and blew them out with a giant raspberry into the faces of the assembled English.
Australia even won the verbal battles today which were numerous. The whole series has been turned on its head. It will be a white knuckle ride from here on in.
One note of optimism was sounded by former England captain Adam Hollioake who graciously spoke with us on air at stumps.
He is convinced the Perth wicket is getting progressively easier and batting last could be to England’s advantage. He pointed also to the great escapes of the last 18 months at Cardiff and twice in South Africa.
But I’m not falling for that trap. I started the series hopeful but expecting disappointment. The last 9 days of test cricket have tested my powers of pessimism to the very limit and I was found wanting. I apologise with all my heart. From now on, I shall fear the worst.